DENVER - Vine Deloria Jr., an influential advocate of American Indian rights and the author of the groundbreaking "Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto," has died, family members said. He was 72.

Deloria, a Standing Rock Sioux, died Sunday of complications from an aortic aneurysm, said his son, Phil Deloria.

The author was considered one of the most outspoken - and persuasive - proponents of Indian cultural and political identity.

"I think he opened Americans' eyes to the real history of Native Americans and the injustice of past federal policies," said John Echohawk, executive director of the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder.

"I think what we saw in (Deloria's) generation of Native Americans was this transition of federal policy from termination to self-determination, and Vine, I think, was the real leader in making that happen," Echohawk said.

"Through Vine's leadership, tribes started to stand on their treaties and their right to self-determination," he said.

As president of the National Congress of American Indians in the 1960s, Deloria helped forge a united, "pan-Indian approach" in dealing with the federal government, said Patricia Limerick, faculty chair of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado.

"His role in getting Indian people heard in the last half of the 20th century is unparalleled," she said. "(He was able to) get his message into camps where it had never been heard."

Deloria, a native of South Dakota, had taught at the University of Colorado, retiring in 2000. He lived in Golden, just west of Denver.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara, of Golden; a brother and a sister; two sons; a daughter; and seven grandchildren.